Have Environmentalists Won the Iran War?
Who was REALLY playing 4D chess?
Has the US lost the Iran War? Robert Kagan thinks so. And things seem to be going supercalifragilisticexpialidociously badly: In negotiations, Iran just asked for reparations, and end to sanctions, and permanent sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz. Those are “sign your surrender in the same railcar you made us surrender in” terms — we’re lucky they didn‘t ask for Trump to eat a jar of bugs at the UN.
“Trump is playing 4D chess” is like “Society will achieve enlightenment through Ted Talks”: It’s a belief that no serious person can hold. But maybe someone else was playing 4D chess, and the brilliance of their moves is only now becoming clear — I speak, of course, of the environmental movement. Environmentalists have come to be known for throwing soup on famous works of art and generally acting like human polyps on the societal colon. But we’re now poised for a change to global energy markets unlikely anything in my lifetime, and I’m wondering if maybe environmentalists were incredibly annoying LIKE A FOX! Tell me that these puzzle pieces don’t fit together:
Phase 1: Make everyone hate you
If this was Phase 1 of environmentalists’ plan, it was a rollicking success. Fringe climate doomers left no stone unturned in making ordinary people yearn to see them trampled by buffalo. Desecrate national landmarks? Check. Make mundane tasks suddenly difficult? Check. Annoy commuters? Check. That last one is especially brash — commuters are already annoyed, they’re like pit bulls who have been fed cocaine and poked with sticks, they’re psychos on a hair trigger and in some cultures1 merging incorrectly is functionally a suicide attempt. Environmentalists could not have more effectively become targets for ire if they had scrubbed their asses with every toothbrush in America.
Phase 2: Help Trump get elected by poisoning the Democratic brand
Fringe environmentalists aren’t really Democrats, per se, but they’re definitely on the left. And therefore, anything they do affects the Democratic brand. This would be true even if Democrats forcefully denounced actions by fringe weidos, but that’s hypothetical: The trend in Democratic politics is to try to play nice with the cultists who are destroying our entire project. Many Democratic staffers and politicians would rather watch their life’s work fail than get made fun of by 17 year-olds on TikTok.
In 2024, left wing activists were a better friend to Trump than Jeffrey Epstein ever was. They savaged Harris on social media. They harassed Democrats at public events. They pressured Democrats to take unpopular positions, and when they succeeded, they simply asked for the next thing and accused Democrats of genocide. They did more to elect Trump than Fox News and Joe Biden’s dementia combined, which only makes sense if: 1) They’re idiots, or 2) This move was the masterstroke in their 4D chess strategy.
Phase 3: Watch Trump fall back-asswards into a global energy crisis, thus creating the biggest win for green energy in history
Long-term Iranian control of the Strait of Hormuz now looks like a real possibility. Iran continues to threaten refining capacity throughout the Middle East. Oil prices have already spiked, and they’re poised to go higher if the situation isn’t resolved.
This is the game-changer that people who worry about climate change dared not even dream about. Trump may have bungled his way into higher energy prices worldwide — the Iran War is functionally a global carbon tax. Soon, people will ask themselves “Should I wait for Trump to fix this, or start looking into less-energy-intense solutions?” And “wait for Trump to fix this” is clearly a position for suckers and losers who subconsciously want to fail.
If the past decade-plus of environmentalist weirdness was a grand strategy to ignite a green energy revolution, then I take back everything bad I ever said about environmentalists. If true, they’re not even puppet masters — they’re puppet necromancers, operating on a level that my mind can’t comprehend. And the cherry on the sundae is that Trump was an unwitting pawn in turbo-charging the development of the clean energy he loathes — positively genius, you crunchy green freaks! I genuflect to the long con of the century; may a thousand blessings be upon your dirty, hippie heads! Because I did not have the foresight to plan this. And I don’t think that you did, either, but “bravo” on the off-chance that you did.
Boston.
Where the Green New Deal failed, the Green Springtime for Hitler succeeded.
I appreciate the comedic premise of the article, but just like tariffs don't bring back manufacturing jobs, high fossil fuel prices don't lead to clean energy, but throwing soup at a painting and slowing down commuters REALLY doesn't lead to clean energy. If you Google gas prices in the last 20 years and the number of EVs on the road, the graphs look very different. Gas prices have fallen and risen and the number of EVs has just increased over the same amount of time; there's no obvious correlation between the two. EVs started out as very expensive, and now they are just expensive; the cost has come down as the battery tech improves, but the EVs are still more expensive than gas cars. If climate activists want clean energy, they need to create new or improve existing clean energy sources, not try to guilt trip and shame people into consuming clean energy...if Mamdani really wanted free buses and non-profit grocery stores, then he should start a company or a non-profit to run free buses and non-profit grocery stores rather than become mayor and then order people running the city to run free buses and non-profit grocery stores.
Put another way: you can't induce me to go to Morton's steakhouse by making McDonald's cheeseburgers more expensive. I either need to have a higher income or Morton's has to be cheaper if you want me to go to Morton's.